


HSWC 2014 Bonus Round Two Fills

by sonicSymphony



Series: HSWC 2014 Bonus Round Fills [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 13,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicSymphony/pseuds/sonicSymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A variety of ships in many different situations, all written for the second bonus round of the Homestuck Shipping World Cup 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Wolf's Jaws; Nepeta&Gamzee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "In boca al lupo!" In the wolf's mouth, which is to say, "You don't really need luck, because you're the kind of person who would come out on top, even if you were to find your head in the jaws of a slobbering, extra mean wolf with bad breath (okay, so I embellished that last part a bit). But just in case, good luck, anyway."
> 
> "Crepi (il lupo!)" May the wolf die, which is to say, "If I ever find myself with my head in the mouth of a wolf, may the wolf die instead of me!"

You cover the distance from the air vent to Gamzee faster than you’ve ever leapt at anything, fueled by a toxic combination of grief and rage. It burns like insanity in your veins, turning you into the fierce huntress you’ve always known yourself to be. Prey has never escaped you before, and you won’t let this moronic, disgusting clown be the first to evade you.  
  
He turns to you so quickly you hardly see him move. One moment he’s standing over Equius—your moirail your moirail your wonderful, dead _moirail_ —and the next he’s smirking at you, eyes hidden behind gut-wrenchingly familiar cracked sunglasses. Faster than your eyes can follow, his hand lashes out and catches your arm in an iron grip, and you hear the bone crack but don’t feel it. Adrenaline is too copious in your bloodstream.  
  
Gamzee’s smile widens like he feels like he’s won, so you take your claws and rake them across his face, relishing the sensation of them cutting into his putrid flesh and watching purple blood immediately begin to flow. As soon as victory twists in your gut, you’re being thrown to the ground, _hard_. You hear, rather than feel, your breath leave your lungs in a _whoosh_. Clubs in his hands, he advances on you, and you can’t pull it together fast enough—  
  
 _Equius is counting on you,_ something within you shrieks, and that thought is the only reason you can summon the strength to roll out of the way of the club barreling towards you. The dent it makes in the metal floor makes you want to throw up, but you raise your claws and _snarl_ , vengeance on your tongue.  
  
You are staring down Death himself, the slobbering feral barkbeast that will eventually come for everyone you hold dear, and you burn as you remember that he has already taken your dearest from you. In the past, back on Alternia, you’ve ogled more terrifying adversaries, toothier beasts, larger foes. Gamzee Makara at his most sober is still a _troll_ —a pathetic, moronic one, at that—and you shall remind him of this immewtable fact.  
  
He expects you to be easy, but you dodge his next swing as well. And his next. And his next. He will not tire like you will, you realize, so you need to finish this quickly.  
  
It’s hard to trip him. He nicks you with the edge of one of his clubs and you fly back, hearing your shoulder’s audible _pop_ as it dislocates. Luckily, it’s on the same side as your broken arm, so you’re not down both upper limbs. However, you play dead, pretending you’re too hurt to get up so he comes in close for the kill strike…  
  
Then you’re on your feet faster than light, scraping your claws across his long, skinny throat.  
  
Your blades hardly even catch on the tendons. You roll when you land on the other side of him and look back just as he falls to his knees, thin lines on his throat opening to gush torrents of blood down his chest as he chokes. As a last resort, he chucks his club at your head. It whirs by you, hitting only the hair hanging between your chin and shoulder before it collides with the wall behind you.  
  
Just as you would do on a proper hunt, you check to make sure he’s dead. His breathing has ceased, but on the off chance he’s trying to trick you, you step on his throat for about a minute to make sure he won’t be getting back up.  
  
Purple blood has soaked into the hems of your pants and coat, but you don’t care. It’s just another part of hunting. You sheath your claws and stare at Gamzee’s body as your rage simmers down into something hollow and broken. Your injuries make themselves known, but nothing hurts more than the desperate ache in your chest. Swallowing, you turn to the other body in the block.  
  
Equius is smiling. It’s an incredibly rare sight; you can count on one paw how many times he’s let even the smallest upward turn of his lips slip past his strong façade. It makes you feel ill, so you crouch down, smoothing his expression into something more neutral. Lips trembling, you sit, moving closer to his side. You curl up between his chest and his arm, resting your head on his shoulder. Others on the meteor will come looking for you and Equius and Gamzee, but you hope they never find you.


	2. Borrowing; Eridan/Meenah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Tingo (Pascuense-Easter Island) – the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.

You thought it was weird when your brand new bottle of $50 shampoo went missing. When you saw it three days later, stuck in the side pocket of Eridan’s backpack as he studied at the dining room table with your little sister, you confronted him, tapping your foot impatiently as he floundered for an explanation. “I’m just _borrowing_ it,” he said, huffing and leaning back in his chair. “I was thinking about buying that brand, so I figured I might as well try it out!”  
  
Shrugging nonchalantly, you let it happen; you could just buy more next time you went to the salon.   
  
After that, though, he started borrowing a lot more stuff from you. You called him out on it, once, when he asked to borrow your bike even though he hadn’t given back the ten other things he’d “borrowed” in the past two months. Fef told him he could take it, giving you a look that could freeze oceans. Once he was gone, Feferi sat you down and told you about a big scandal that went down with Papa Ampora’s company, and how they lost a lot of money, so would you _please_ let him keep borrowing things? “Just until we graduate in a month,” she assured you, expression earnest, “and then you don’t have to worry about him taking things anymore.”  
  
You could never turn your sister down when she gave you puppy dog eyes, so you sighed and say it was fine when it really irked you to no end.  
  
Graduation comes and goes, and Feferi extends her cutoff date to the end of summer. When Eridan asks to borrow your pool lounges and leftover cheesecake (how can you _borrow_ food?) and even your _grill_ , you just sit there and take it, resentment growing each time he takes something else. It’s like the little shit doesn’t realize you know _exactly_ what he’s doing; he just takes and takes and expects no retribution and makes no attempt to repay you for your losses.  
  
In August, Feferi goes to school, and you think it all will stop. The first day of September, the doorbell rings, and lo and fucking behold, it’s the youngest, scrappiest Ampora kid, looking pathetically hopeful and dressed in the uniform of a coffee shop downtown.  
  
“I thought you were in college,” you tell him, leaning against the doorframe and barring his entry.  
  
“I am,” he says, turning red to the tips of his ears. “Community college.”  
  
You know for a fact he got into UC Berkeley. He wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks after he found out, you wanted to beat him with a frying pan. Apparently daddy couldn’t foot the bill anymore, and the words _“student loan”_ seem to repulse him. “I’m sure you know Fef’s in California,” you say, putting on your I’m-so-done-with-your-glubbin-shit expression. It’s pretty fuckin terrifying, you’re surprised he’s not shitting his pants here and now. “Why’re you here?”  
  
“I was wondering,” he starts, holding out his I long enough to show his nervousness, “if I could borrow—”  
  
You hold up a hand, cutting him off before he has a chance to say what he wanted to. “Look,” you sigh, “I don’t wanna be a megabitch, but you’ve gotta stop taking our shit. Fef’s gone, there’s nothing for you here.”  
  
“Come on, Meen,” he needles, shifting closer. “I thought we were friends! Not like, good friends, but decent enough chums. Pals.” When your expression remains unchanged, he hedges, “Acquaintances?”  
  
“You remember when I tried to drown you when you were seven?” you ask. He gulps, nodding. “If you don’t want me to _actually_ drown you, I don’t want to see you around here again until Feferi gets back from school, you hear me, boy?”  
  
He scowls, the sneer making his so-so face downright ugly. “Fine,” he bites, spinning on his heel and tucking his hands into the pockets of his non-designer jeans. You shut the door, giving him a few seconds to get far enough away before peeking out of a window. You see him get onto the bike he borrowed from you _months_ ago and ride away.  
  
The next day, when you go outside to check the mail, you notice one of the decorative sea creatures from your front garden is gone. Your favorite sea turtle, to add insult to injury.  
  
That does it. Eridan “Little Fuckin Bitch” Ampora has declared _war_.


	3. Stars; Eridan/Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: _Shieraki gori ha yeraan!,_ Dothraki, 'The stars are charging for you.' (Said to someone who is going into battle.)

“It doesn’t have to be you,” he says quietly, scooping a bit of sopor in his hand and drizzling it into your hair. Carefully, he massages your scalp like he thinks he can work the sopor’s calming effects into your thinkpan so they’ll wash over you in battle.

You let him think his touch mollifies you, sliding further into the recuperacoon and nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck, appreciating the steady beat of his pulse against your cheekbone. Kar’s hand moves lightly to the base of your skull, running his knuckles along your skin, eventually adjusting to finger the hair at the nape of your neck. It feels wonderful, and you purr for him, looking up at him through squinting eyes to see the corners of his mouth quirk up with tenderness.

“Yes is does,” you breathe against his shoulder, and his hand stills. “I’d never forgive myself if I backed down now.”

Strictly speaking, it _doesn’t_ have to be you. Her Benevolent Reticence wanted it to be, though. _There’s no one I would trust more,_ she said when she gave you the order in an audience nearly a perigee ago, _to end this war._

Trolls are a naturally violent species. You had wars and disputes and battles on all fronts, but none were as threatening as the _civil_ war, because it was trolls fighting trolls. Those who remained loyal to the ruthless Condesce even after her death would not be put down easily.

Karkat cannot come with your further than the Araabi starsystem, because he is too important. He is a symbol; you are a sea dweller, and though your caste is penultimate, you are still expendable. Even if he wasn’t, you wouldn’t want him with you anyway. You act confident about your impending victory, since it seems to comfort Kar, but truthfully, you feel very, very unprepared, and very, very afraid.

It’s silent for a while, after that small bit of conversation. You try to memorize the feeling of his feverish skin and his calloused hands and his smell—the bit of sweat and musk that cling to him even through the thick scent of sopor. His fingers brush along your jaw and your forehead, caressing the tines of your fins and the base of your horns; he knows exactly how to hold you and precisely where to touch you to get you relaxed and malleable in his arms. Too soon, he sits up, and you whine as you’re jostled from your position, curled up against his side. He makes you straighten too, and takes in the unperturbed slump of your shoulders while you gaze into his eyes, the red rings surrounding his pupils making a chill creep down your spine, even after this long.

“The stars are charging for you,” he says, his voice the tiniest bit strangled, and you swallow the lump the words create in your throat. You’ve heard them before, from other officers going into battle and loved ones sending away their most precious treasures. Usually, there’s fire in the words, a promise of triumph and good fortune. The way Kar said them sounded almost broken, whispered like he could barely get them out of his throat, and you ache for him. He leans forward and you close your eyes as he kisses your forehead, your eyelids, the tip of your nose, and finally, your lips. He tastes like salt and mouthwash, and you’re so pale for him you feel like you could burst into a supernova at any moment.

“I’ll come home,” you promise, laying your forehead against his and pretending your voice didn’t just crack with uncertainty. _I wish I didn’t have to leave you_ is left unsaid.

On your last day together, you lay in the sopor, pressed as close as you can and memorizing each other all over again. Neither of you sleep, but you don’t speak either, just in case one of you dozes off.

Watching him get on the shuttle the next night is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, and you’ve faced down Empresses and behemoths and fleets the size of infinity. You think of his words and wish that stars could actually follow you into battle, because with them on your side, there would be no sickening ambiguity surrounding your return. For now, your fate is shrouded in dust and ashes, and you hope desperately that you’re good enough to survive the carnage that is to come.


	4. Chatter; Eridan/Feferi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Zhaghzhagh (Persian)- The chattering of teeth from either cold or rage.

Eridan has a funny habit, where his teeth chatter when he’s mad. He tries to cover it up by biting his scarf, but you still see the slight trembling of the fabric. It makes you laugh, which only serves to make him more enraged. It’s the only time you’ve ever seen his teeth chatter.

Until now.

“Fef, it’s fuckin freezing,” he whines, ankle-deep in the crystal clear water. There’s no scarf for him to hide behind now, since he’s stripped down to his purple-striped swim trunks. A minnow nips as his toes, and he squeals, almost falling on his ass.

“You’re the one who wanted to come here!” you exclaim, splashing some water at him. He makes a very wiggler-ish noise; he still acts pretty young for a four-sweep-old, even if he tries to act all mature. “I would’ve happily stayed in the ocean, but you were like, ‘Glub glub, Fef, I know-wuh about this cool fresh wuh-water spring fiwe miles inland. Skyhorse can take us there and wuh-we can swuh-wim all day!’ So come ON, guppy!”

He continues shivering, cupping his elbows and sticking out his lower lip to pout. His glasses magnify his puppydog eyes, and you wouldn’t put it past him to start pretend-crying to get out of swimming. You wish his lusus hadn’t floated off somewhere, because he doesn’t put up with Eridan’s shit half as much as you do. Sighing, you swim forward, going back to the shallows and walking right up to your stupid frond. Reaching out, you take his hands and he flinches, shivering even harder. “You made fun of my accent,” he says quietly, sniffling.

“Sorry,” you say, running your thumb over his knuckles. He’ll never admit it’s actually a stutter; you tried to get him to when you first met, but you soon learned that wasn’t a line you were supposed to cross. “ _Please_ come in the water, Eriglub?”

Chewing on his lower lip with his chattering teeth, he shuffles forward a few steps, going from his ankle-deep to his knees. After some more whining from him and coaxing from you, you get him in to his waist. “It’s _cold_ ,” he complains, and you sarcastically think, _Yeah, no shit_.

Right behind you, there’s a cliff that drops about fifty feet to the rocky bottom, vibrant plants of purple and pink flowing in the slight current. “You’ll be okay,” you say, letting go of one of his hands to cup his cheek, brushing the bottom tine of his left fin with the tips of your fingers. He leans into your palm, eyes fluttering closed, and you take advantage of his lowered guard. Tightening your grip on his hand, you jolt backwards, and as you laugh and he squawks, you tumble backwards into the deeper water.

Removing your hand from his face, you grab his flailing arm and take his hand, so you’re once again holding both of them. As you pull him farther down, you see the nictitating membranes slide over his eyes. The breath he was holding is released in a gargantuan GLUB and you giggle as his gills flex, taking in water for the first time in perigees.

You lead him to the bottom and make him sit. His teeth are still chattering, and this time you’re not sure if it’s from the cold or anger. Leaning forward, you brush your nose against his, and he reluctantly returns your nuzzle. Flicking your fins, you ask, _“Still cold?”_

 _“A little bit,”_ he responds. _“I can deal with it.”_

He probably won’t trust you again for a while after that little stunt, but you still think it was worth it.


	5. Cold; young!Signless/Dolorosa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: friolero (spanish) - a person who is especially sensitive to cold weather and temperatures

He never sleeps well during the cold season. Many times, you’ve woken up to him burrowing into your side, saying, “I’m cold, Mother, I’m so cold,” and shivering like he’s coming apart at the seams. He has always been sensitive to the temperature, feeling each extreme and everything in between with mixed emotions, and when it is cold he bundles up in whatever rags you can find for him and tries to fuse into you.

Today, you’re staying in a cave about two miles from the nearest city, because the last town you’d found work in started asking questions about the small boy that sometimes followed you to the seamstress’ shop. You’ll finish the journey tonight and find a room at an inn with warm recuperacoons and thick, soothing sopor, but today the temperature is colder than you’ve ever experienced.

You sit near the mouth of the cave, stroking a fire and keeping as close as you can without risk of your draping fabric catching on the embers. The shadows yield to muted sunlight about three feet away, and there’s snow on every inch of ground that isn’t shielded by rocks. Kankri is curled up at your back, and you can feel his trembling even through his thick coat and your cloak. You yearn to touch him, to run your fingers through his hair and calm him, but you don’t have gloves—you used them to pay the kind blacksmith that took you in the night before—so your cooler body temperature would only make him more uncomfortable.

“Mother?” he says quietly, shifting.

“Yes, lovely?” you respond as he sits up.

“When can we go?” he asks, wrapping his small arms around your torso. Though he’s still positively tiny, he used to be much smaller. You can hardly believe he’s three sweeps now.

(Three sweeps. It’s been three sweeps since you ran from the caverns and became in Imperial fugitive and risked your life for this _wiggler_ , this little aberration that wormed his way into your bloodpusher from the moment you saw him—)

“A few more hours,” you say, and he pushes himself into your lap, not quite standing to do so. You pull your legs closer to your body and cup him in your embrace as he shivers. Looking up at you inquisitively, he reaches up to place a hand on your exposed neck.

His bare, burning skin feels _wonderful_ to you, but you say, “No, Kankri, I’ll just make you colder—”

“But you’re cold too,” he says, eyes large and earnest. “You’re shaking.”

“I’ll be fine,” you tell him, taking his hand in both of yours and moving it back to his lap before letting go. “If I get too cold, I can go out into the sunlight.”

He chirrs, high and affectionate, before snuggling into the soft fabric of your cloak. Leaning down, you place a kiss right between his tiny horns and lay your cheek on his hair, completely burying him with your body as he shivers and shifts. Sighing, you think about how he’s escaped drones and officers and vitriolic foes that only wished to harm him. The cold will not do him in, he is too strong.


	6. Noisy Neighbor; Equius/Vriska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Desvelado - Spanish - The tiredness that comes specifically from having been kept awake all night – by inconsiderate neighbours, for example.

You thought you’d be used to the screaming by now. That, or Vriska would learn to kill her prey before she fed it to Spidermom. Sighing, you sink deeper into the sopor, tilting your head back so your ears are under the green goop. It’s uncomfortable, but you eventually start to doze. You might’ve even fallen asleep if your inconsiderate neighbor hadn’t decided to give her lusus a buffet that particular morning.

 _“Please!”_ the shriek comes from the chasm between your hives, where Spidermom has woven her web. _“Please, I only was FLARPing because I need money, my moirail is ill—”_

Vriska’s reply is too low to hear, but you know the rude girl well enough to know it’s likely something acerbic and callous. Clenching your jaw, you sit up and climb out of your recuperacoon, heading into the ablution block so you can rinse the sopor from your skin.

Once you’re properly dressed, hair combed and daytime cloak in place, you head outside, staying under heavy tree cover so the sun doesn’t scorch your skin as you head to the gorge. The familiar sounds of bones crunching greets you, and you decide to wait for Vriska to climb out of the chasm instead of risking the ire of her lusus.

It takes about five minutes, but you see her appear on the rope ladder on her side of the cliff, and you stand. “Serket,” you call, and she turns toward you. There’s a large splotch of wetness on her cloak; you can’t tell what color it is, but it’s certainly blood. Most likely low, because even someone as uncouth as Vriska wouldn’t murder someone close to her on the hemospectrum.

You hope.

“Listen you sweaty mountain of shit, I am _not_ in the mood,” she snaps, and you can see the snarl on her face from fifty feet away.

“Can you _please_ silence the… food you give to your lusus?” you ask. “Reasonable trolls normally try to sleep at this hour.”

“She likes the fight!” Vriska says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “It means _I_ don’t have to strife with her.”

“Then _gag_ them.” You take a deep breath, trying not to lose your temper. You hate your neighbor’s ability to rub you the wrong way and fluster you so you can’t suppress your emotions properly. “Or feed her during the night.” She’s been out here for much longer than you have; you wonder how she isn’t even a little bit crispy under her thick daycloak.

“I have two words for you, Zahhak.” She holds up both middle fingers, hands covered with gloves. _“Fuck. Ooooooooff.”_

You scowl as she stomps to her hive. Not for the first time, you consider setting her lusus on fire. Vriska would either take it as a blessing or kill you, and after the fiasco with Megido, you err on the side of caution. You wouldn’t want Nepeta to be manipulated like a puppet, providing her with a fate similar to Captor’s.

Returning to your recuperacoon, you undress and sink back into the sopor. Finally, you’ll be able to get some sleep—

Or so you thought. Apparently, your unruly neighbor thought this would be the perfect time to start blaring Troll Ludicrous’ newest album. You can feel the base from here.


	7. Facedown; Eridan/Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dolilyts (Ukranian)- To lie with your face turned down to the ground.

“Uuuuuuuuuugh.”

“Eridan.”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.”

“Eridan. Hey, dipshit. Get up.”

“Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.”

“I did _not_ rent a boat to take me all the way to your shipwreck hive in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere for you to just lie on your face singing a blubberbeast opera. Hey, did it ever occur to you that maybe—hold on to your socks, Eridan, they’re in danger of getting knocked off—I actually came to _spend some time with my matesprit_. Hold your applause.”

When he doesn’t make another dying whale noise, you sigh, crossing your arms over your chest and looking down at the dejected asshole lying face-down on the deck of his ship. Carefully, you nudge him in the side with your toe, and he shifts a little, mumbling. “What?” you ask.

“That hurt my gills,” he sulks, risking getting splinters in his lips by speaking. You notice he still has his glasses on, and even though he has a big nose to serve as a buffer, the wood has to be making them press uncomfortably into his face. He seems to realize talking isn’t in his best interest in that position, so he shifts his face slightly to the right. “They’re sensitive.”

“ _You’re_ sensitive,” you say, and his shoulders shake a little. You’re not sure if it was from a small laugh or a sob, but either way, the motion makes something lurch in your chest. Exhaling, you sit down next to his shoulder and tentatively reach towards him, burying your fingers in his hair. He makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat, and you have to swallow before you can speak. “I _thought_ you were acting weird on Trollian. What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid,” he says.

You almost respond _, I’m not your moirail, Ampora, I’m not going to dance in circles around your woobie problems_ , but you think reminding him of his recent breakup would be counterproductive. Biting your lip, you run your thumb over the base of one of his horns, and he doesn’t purr like he normally does. “Just tell me, you drama queen.” For some extra coaxing power, your stroke the lowest tine of his left fin.

This time, he _does_ purr, and the sound lifts a weight off your shoulders. “I took Gl’bgolyb’s food down to her myself because I didn’t feel like interacting with Fef,” he explains, leaning into your touch. You move your hand to stroke his cheek. His skin is wonderfully cool. “The eldritch songs, they just… fuck with my head. I don’t like going near her, only Fef can take it.” One of his hands reaches up to paw at a fin. “I started bleeding out of my fuckin ears, it wasn’t fun.”

“If I got any closer to her, I’d probably croak,” you say, patting his cheek, “so take your ability to look right into her maw as a compliment from the Gods.”

“It doesn’t feel like a compliment,” he whines, “I have a headache the size of the Condesce’s flagship.”

“That’s an impressive brain-feat, you poor wiggler. I’ll fry you some fish,” you tell him, reaching to squeeze his hand. “It’s good comfort food for sea dwellers, I read it on Troll Yahoo! Answers.”

“Thanks, Kar,” he says, turning his head so he’s once again trying to become one with his deck.

With a groan, you get up, heading to his food preparation block (you think it’s called a galley on a ship) and hoping he has fish in his freezer. You’re hopeless with a rod and reel.


	8. Echoes; Eridan&Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Un déjà-vu (French)- To have a feeling that a moment already happened during one's life, once or more.

“Eridan,” Karkat says from where he is across from you, leveling you with his gaze. “You don’t have to do this.”

“But I do.” You thrust your nose up in the air, seeing clearly what you have to do.

Kar gulps. “You’ll doom the entire species,” he tells you, and you don’t care. You don’t care about what’ll happen to Fef or Kan or Sol or even Kar. You get hit with a strange sense that lays a fog on your brain; maybe you’ve done something similar before, in another life.

“I’ll fight you,” Sollux says, mouth set into a grim line. “I cast Fire Shield.”

“Roll,” Karkat commands.

Sol takes his 20-sided di and rolls, leaning over to see the result. “It’s successful.”

“I’ll attack Eridan, too,” Fef says, and you turn to her in betrayal. “I take out my trident and...” She rolls and frowns. “I miss.”

“Good,” you snort, leaning back into the couch. “Now that the element of surprise is gone—”

“I take out my scythe and attack,” Kan cuts you off, and you make a wounded noise as she rolls. “I hit, with…” She rolls her d4. “Four damage.”

Karkat turns to look at you, expression earnest. “Eridan, as your Dungeon Master and therefore your god, _don’t do this you fucking idiot_. Your alignment—”

“Fuck that,” you interrupt, “I’m doing what feels right.”

Exhaling, Kar says, “Everyone roll for initiative, then.”

Fef goes first, then you, then Sol, then Kan. Fef only does one damage on hers and you cast Holy Sword so you’ll _wreck_ them after this turn. You can’t shake the feeling that something greater than Dungeons and Dragons is happening. Or did happen. You really don’t know. You feel like this sometimes—like echoes of the past are washing over you. If you don’t think about it very hard, it doesn’t terrify you.

You knock out Sol, and he bleeds on the ground until he’s only a few HP away from death. Surprisingly, you manage to crit Fef with a spell, and she dies. “You motherglubber!” she exclaims, throwing a pillow at you. While you deflect it, trying not to knock over one of the many cans of soda, she lunges, tackling you and digging her fingers into your sides. Squirming, you try to shove her away, and Karkat calls, “Guys, if Eridan kicks the coffee table in all his flailing, my dad is going to kill me. He’s still not over the _last_ coffee table you fucks broke—”

“It’s her fault!” you exclaim, trying not to laugh. With one last jab, Fef gets off, flicking you off with both hands before sitting back down.

Three turns later, you’re falling to the ground, dead.

“Are you happy now, you psychotic freak?” Karkat demands, and you put your head in your hands. “Goddammit, go sleep at Fef’s tonight, I can’t share a dorm with you. I might catch your stupidity.”

“He’s not staying with _me_ ,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “He _murdered_ me!”

Turning to Kar, you give him the biggest puppydog eyes you can muster, shaking your lower lip for effect. He stares you down, unwavering. Dejected, you head to the kitchen to bake him some brownies to remind him he loves you.


	9. Rise and Hope; Eridan/Feferi/Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt." - german; Hope dies last.

She’s coming for you.

Maybe it’s a Tyrian thing, but you can feel the moment she sets her sights on Alternia, even though she’s across the galaxy. It will take her perigees to reach the planet, perhaps many more to find you, if you hide like Eridan wants you to. You told him you couldn’t do that though, because for the first time in recorded history, the Heiress will not be facing the Condesce alone.

You have supporters.

It started with Eridan. Even if he didn’t agree with your ideals, he loved you enough to ignore the death sentence hanging over his head if you failed. He was influential enough to bring a few powerful people to your side, because of his position as a high-ranking FLARPer and the youngest person (who wasn’t fuchsia) to hold the position of Orphaner. He talked to people and schemed, bringing in trolls like Vriska Serket—your chaotic, dangerous wildcard—and others on the cold end of the hemospectrum. Somehow, they respect him. You’re proud of what he’s done, and love him for his dedication to your cause.

Next came Tavros. It took a lot of convincing from both you and Vriska, but when he pupated wings and became the spitting image of his famous rebel-leader ancestor, you knew you had to secure his support. He is uncomfortable with large crowds and doesn’t speak well, but he’s getting there. He is an important asset and a symbol for the future.

But he is the remnant of a war hero that was martyred and burned. You needed more than that.

“Fef,” Eridan says one day, hands shaking. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

And that’s how you ended up in a meeting with him and the second coming of the Signless Sufferer, the last relic of an influential deviant and a doomsday prophet.

You’re symbols, all three of you. By the time you were seven sweeps old, you had them, and for the first time, your hope wasn’t futile.

When you feel Her Imperious Condescension set her sights on you, you go to Eridan’s hive. You need your top adviser, your anchor, your moirail. You find him curled up in the sopor with his matesprit, his chin tucked between Karkat’s tiny horns. Your smile is shaky, and you take off your clothes before sliding into the recuperacoon with them.

Eridan whines as you take one of his arms and slide it around your shoulders. On reflex, he pulls you closer, and you wind your arms around both of them, pressing your face into Eridan’s neck. You feel a small hand work its way into your hair, and your eyes flit over to meet Karkat’s gaze. His expression is sleepy, but the red rings around his pupils still manage to burn. “Wha’ time ‘s it?” he slurs.

“Daytime,” you say, tightening your grip on him. “Go back to sleep.”

“Don’ tell me wha’ t’ do,” he says, eyes fluttering shut.

You feel a thumb rub the top tine of your right fin, and you look up to see Eridan give you a drowsy smile. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” you say, kissing the edge of his jaw. He rumbles a purr, tracing patterns on your arm with the tip of his finger, and before drifting off to sleep, you _hope_.

When she comes for you, you are as ready as you’ll ever be. You have loyal supporters, an inner circle made up of every blood color, proper weapons, and knowledge and history. You know how this will go, and as you clutch your trident, you feel a shift in the breeze that promises change.

Eridan and Karkat flank you as you walk to the Imperial Flagship. No one else can come with you; even your two closest companions aren’t supposed to be here. They came, though, Karkat’s sickles hanging at his belt and Ahab’s Crosshairs slung across Eridan’s back serving as threats.

You will win. You will win, you feel it to your very core.

Before the hatch to the outside closes, you turn to look at your people. You see Tavros hovering in the air a mile away, repeating one of his ancestor’s speeches from millennia ago. Gamzee is no doubt with him, keeping an eye on rowdy rebels with his self-proclaimed title as the Grand Highblood keeping them in check. Every troll on this planet is yours, because you conquered Alternia with words and promises of a brighter future. There are those that oppose, as always, but your supporters are in the majority. With them at your back, you will win the succession duel.

Once you are closed off inside the ship, surrounded by guards that will lead you to your battle and your destiny, you do not walk. You glide on the wings of hope.

They take you deep within the bowels of the ship to a room with your sign painted onto an ornate set of double doors. The design looks fresh—perhaps they touched it up to prepare for your arrival. You grab both handles and pull, letting the doors swing toward you. Leaving them open behind you, you step into the room to meet your fate.

You don’t feel the first bullet. It goes straight through your knee, and suddenly you’re on the ground. Eridan yells, then there’s the sound of flesh tearing and the smell of burnt ozone. You push yourself up with your trident, and the next three bullets hit your neck, your torso, and your shoulder. Coughing, you drop to your hands and knees, filling with rage. What an _insult_ , that the Condesce wouldn’t even show up to fight you.

(Or is it a compliment? Is she afraid?)

More bullets pound into your chest, and you find yourself lying on tile that’s slick with your blood, staring through the doors. The wooden paneling is splattered with blood—violet and mutant red. It makes you feel ill. The heaps on the floor do not resemble trolls, but you know who they must be. You wish you were closer to Karkat and Eridan, so you could hold their hands.

The Condesce will feed Alternia and the Great Bloody Fleet lies, you are certain. No one will know what duplicity has occurred; you were promised a succession duel—a fair fight—and you were sniped and killed before you even got a glimpse of the Empress. But unlike sweeps previous, it was not simply your fight. It wasn’t even contained to you, Eridan, and Karkat. No, you had Alternia behind you.

You had Tavros and Gamzee and Vriska. You had Kanaya to win you favor in the breeding caverns and Terezi to manipulate anything involving legality. You had countless friends and allies, and they will not bow their heads and bear their punishments with grace. They will scream and shout and _rise_ , and there will be bloodshed and terror, but truth will come out on top, and the tyranny of Her Imperious Condescension will end. You may be dead, but hope dies last.


	10. Swerve; Condesce/Psiioniic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Shnourkovat Sya- (Russian) when drivers change lanes frequently and unreasonably

The first time he did it, you thought the gravitational systems had malfunctioned. You’re sitting on your concupiscent platform in your fuchsia bathrobe, talking to your stupid moirail, and suddenly you’re being thrown across the room. Growling, you push yourself up, rubbing your head. _Fuck_ , that hurt.

“Where’d you go, sis?” the imbecile asks, voice coming from your tablet.

“Fuckin’ hell,” you say, heading back over to the platform and picking him up. His effigy stares back at you from the screen, face as ugly and painted as ever. “I’ve gotta—”

It happens again, and this time you’re jolted upwards until you hit the ceiling, coming back down to land in a heap on the floor. Snarling, you tell your personal moron, “I’ve gotta swim, Captor’s fuckin’ shit up again.”

“Kill him,” your bae says nonchalantly.

“I’m trying to teach him a lesson,” you explain as you shed your bathrobe and put on proper clothes, “be all didactic ‘n shit. There’s more than one way to kill a rebel, and I reely need to see where this method’s gonna go. You’ve never appreciated a good symbol.”

“I thought we went for symbolism with the jadeblooded bitch,” Kurloz drawls.

“There are diffint kinds,” you say, picking your tablet up just so you can snap your fingers in front of the camera. “Get with the fuckin’ program.”

His reply is cut off when you end the call and toss your tablet like a frisbee. It lands in the recuperacoon, but that thing is waterproof, so it’ll be fine. If you’d broken it, it would’ve been the fifteenth one this sweep. Slipping on your shoes and equipping your strife specibus, you go to meet your Helmsman.

Mituna Captor is strung up from the ceiling with an expression like stone, just like always. He thinks he spites you by not reacting to anything, but really, it’s just hilarious. You never thought he’d be easy to break, especially since he’d been a slave before he ran away with his mutant bro, so he’s used to horrid treatment. Now, he’s your pet project and your power source, hurtling your flagship through space as you conquer planet after planet at a faster rate than ever. He must love being indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions. You bet he thinks about it a lot.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” you snap at him, and all he does is raise an eyebrow. “You know what, cut the fuckin’ sass. You probably bereef you’re doing something finny with the gravity shiftin’ stuff—or whatever it is you’re playin’ at—but it eels like you’re shifting lanes too fast on a fuckin’ highway, and you’re gonna stop it.”

The other eyebrow raises to join the first one. Something deep in your bloodpusher burns, and you step closer to him so you’re nose-to-nose. You think you’ve figured out how to get a reaction from him, since he’s being so pathetically obvious as to where his weak points are. Smirking, you say, “You know, hatchbitch, you’re not very good at pitch flirtin’.”

His eyes widen, and you know you’ve won this round. “I am not,” he croaks venomously, speaking for the first time in sweeps, “ _black flirting_ with you. You are a tyrannical _cunt_ and I live for the day you’re a hunk of meat on some Heiress’ trident.”

Blinking rapidly, you erupt into laughter. When you calm down and wipe the tears from your eyes, you pat his cheek. He snarls at you. “Oh, buoy, you’re one funny little engine.” You let your claws dig into the skin near his ear, and mustard starts leaking down his face. Leaning in close, you whisper, “There are reasons I only fucked with your arms and legs, and if you don’t want me to bring on other punishments sooner rather than later, I’d learn how to drive a bit better, ‘kay?”

The psionic is back to being silent, so you just shrug and grin. Before your hand leaves his face, you let your life powers seep into him, and he shudders with the rush of strength and energy. “See you later, douchebattery.”

It’s only been about fifty sweeps since you made him watch his cherry-blooded freak die. He has not broken yet, but you’ve just assured that you have until the end of time itself to effectively snap his spine over your knee.


	11. Epilogue; Eridan/Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dor (Romanian)- Dor is the longing for someone you love very much, combined with sadness, and implies the need to sing sad songs; its etymology relates it to “dorinta” which means wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Eridan is listening to can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Sh_2Uy8as).

You know a lot of sad songs. “The Sound of Silence” is famous for the line: _hello darkness my old friend_ , and you can relate to that most of the time. You cried into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream to the tune of “Oh! Darling” when Fef rejected you back in middle school. “Angel”—that fucking Sarah McLachlan song from the ASPCA commercials with injured dogs—never fails to make the listener choke up. “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”, “Creep”, and “The Scientist” get varying degrees of reaction from you, depending on your mood. Last night, you’d drank a six pack and decided it was an “Untitled” night, because even without the song screaming in the background, your thoughts were occupied with the question of _how could this happen to me_?  
  
But right now, all you want is a sullen instrumental track (the tempo adagio at most) and Rainy Mood.  
  
You find the right song eventually. It’s a melancholy number, one heavy on the strings, and you try to hum along to the soaring lead cello, but your voice is too low for a lot of the notes so you have to take it an octave lower. The song makes you think of your dusty old violin, sitting in your room at your dad’s house. It probably hasn’t been touched in years, since you first went off to school.  
  
The picture won’t leave your mind, and it makes you sadder. God, this week has been awful. First of all, your boyfriend has fucked off to some far corner of the Earth with his crazy Peace Corps brother. Or at least, that’s what you _assume_ has happened. On Monday, the only evidence you had was five missed calls and a six second voicemail that went something like, “Hey Eridan, it’s me, I just wanted to tell you I’m—OH MY GOD KANKRI, FUCK OFF—!”  
  
It’s happened before. Karkat’s older brother is a crazy, bleeding-heart nutsack. He shows up every once in a while during the summer, dragging Karkat to build houses in bad neighborhoods and install wells in Zambia and give polio vaccines in India. He usually takes him on short trips, and only if they’re really understaffed, but oftentimes he has no way to contact you and you _miss_ him.  
  
That’s not the only thing, though. A few days ago, you wore through the one of the soles of your favorite shoes. The next day, Cronus came over drunk— _again_ —and punched you in a rampage. It hardly bruised and he called you the next day to apologize profusely, but your jaw is still sore. Then yesterday, to top it all off, you lost your job at the used bookstore down the street. Dad would only pay your grad school tuition if you worked your last year of undergrad, and getting laid off is not going to go over well with him.  
  
You’re battered and upset and fucking _lovesick_ , crammed between the washing machine and the wall with your laptop on your knees and headphones clamped over your ears, lights off. You can’t hear much past the thunder and the rain and the wailing of the cello, so you just lean your head and shoulder against the cool metal, trying not to cry.  
  
This routine of yours is common. Hell, you get sad when Kar goes to the _grocery store_ , let alone another _continent_. The apartment feels empty and lifeless without him, and even though you keep the TV on to make yourself less lonely, the place positively _reeks_ with solitude. You just wanna cuddle and smell his cheap cologne and feel his scratchy sweater and—  
  
Something just touched your head, holy shit. You jump back in surprise, hitting your skull on the wall behind you as you stare in horror at the person who broke into your apartment, hands groping around you for some kind of weapon. As you yank off your headphones, the lights flicker on and— _oh_. Wow, that was a bad overreaction.  
  
“You’re going to blow out your eardrums if you listen to your music that loudly,” Karkat says, reaching out a hand for you to grab. Swallowing and shutting your computer, you take it and let him pull you up. “You’re in your Corner of Woe, what’s wrong?”  
  
“My hearing’s _fine_ ,” you defend yourself. Sniffling, you put your stuff down on the top of the washing machine so you can hug the shit out of him, picking him up and bending over backwards.  
  
His arms wrap around your shoulders, and you rub your cheek on his hair. It’s greasy and it smells like he hasn’t had access to a shower lately, but that’s _okay_ because he’s _here_.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles into your neck, “Kankri showed up and was like, ‘Let’s fuck off to Colombia because I got a call from a friend down there, oh Karkat give me your phone before you can tell your worrywart boyfriend where you’re going since we haven’t _bonded_ in a while—”  
  
Clutching him tighter, you murmur into his hair, “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m so glad you’re back.”  
  
When he kisses you, some of the weight that’s been crushing your chest lifts. Normally, he kisses like his personality—he’s burning, impatient, passionate. Now, he takes it slow and comforting, as he can already tell you’re going to need a bit of comfort. “Let’s take a shower,” you tell him, and his legs wind around your hips so you can carry him better. “You smell _musty_ , Kar.”


	12. Content; Eridan/Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Kef (Arabic)- drowsy, drifting contentment, or anything that produces this state of tranquil pleasure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, I'm writing a lot of EriKar this round.

When his thumb rubs the base of your horn, straddling the divide between the keratin and your skin, it startles a chirr out of you. You feel Eridan flinch, and as he starts to draw away, you say, “Don’t stop, you vapid bastard. There’s no way I’m letting you take your hands off me any time before sunset.”

“I can live with that,” he murmurs, his fingers working back into your hair while his other arm tightens around your waist. You don’t have to look up at him to know he’s smiling—that small upward turn of his lips he does when he wants to be utterly tender. The combination of the pile composed of soft scarves and Eridan’s cool, smooth skin makes you want to melt into a puddle of pleasure. Leaning back, you lay your forehead against his neck, feeling his pulse beat in your very core as you place slow, lazy kisses down his collar bone.

You feel so tired, and Eridan’s eyelids are drooping as well, but you don’t want to sleep. You want to remain awake to feel every touch and every caress, to appreciate the reverence in the way he holds you and pampers you. After isolating yourself for so long, keeping everyone at arm’s length to hide your blood color, being able to just _be_ with someone, unabashedly and unashamedly, is the best feeling in the entire world.

For once, Eridan isn’t begging you to lavish attention on him. He’s lethargic and certainly in need of affection, sure, but tonight he seems determined to make you feel loved and treasured. You’ve both had a long day, and he seems perfectly content to cuddle until you both fall asleep.

He eventually pulls his hand out of your hair and disentangles his arm from around you, and you make a worried, yearning noise that would embarrass you under normal circumstances. His soft, breathy chuckle is music to your ears, because he rarely laughs without a cruel edge, and you’ve only heard that particular sound when he’s with you. You _own_ that chuckle. You have it under lock and key.

When he starts massaging your shoulders, you purr, loud and shameless. With his long, sea dweller fingers, he works at the knots and releases tension that has been weighing down on you ever since you realized there wasn’t a place for you on the hemospectrum. If this bigoted, smarmy, _influential_ piece of royalty can love you in such a way that it seems like you’re the star of one of your favorite palemances, maybe…

Maybe you’ll be okay.


	13. Urges; Eridan/Kanaya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Geram (Malay) - An urge that you struggle to suppress.

It’s very hard to be patient with him.

Eridan Ampora is a whiny, idiotic, self-absorbed wiggler about ninety percent of the time. In your long-standing friendship (you cringe to think it was three sweeps ago when he stumbled upon you on Trollian; he was the first troll willing to talk about clothes with you), there has never been a time where you have been as done with him as you are now. Since you started this game, he has been—rightfully—dumped, started a genocidal rampage that is nothing short of a temper tantrum, and invaded your planet to follow you around and complain like you were his moirail.

You’ve _tried_ to be tolerant of him, you truly have. But sometimes, the urge to snap at him becomes too much, and with a surge of something you won’t admit is pitch, you say something snide that either makes his lips curl distastefully as he snaps back acerbically, or causes his fins to wilt as he backs off and runs back to his planet to sulk. Dealing with him is testing your self-control and helping you build an incredibly strong bullshit tolerance.

On the day you realize you’re startlingly, pathetically _black_ for him, you try to suppress that like you’ve been pushing away every other urge that’s popped up when he’s around. It’ll never work between you two—the only vibes you ever get from him are pale. You’re civil with him, trying to forget the hate that simmers sickeningly in the pit of your stomach, but now that you’ve noticed your feelings you can’t avoid them as masterfully as you’d been before, seeing as doing so on top of your fiasco with Vriska is harder than you could’ve ever imagined. As Eridan turns his nose up and scowls and makes awkward passes at you, you absorb it all and take it out on imps once he’s gone, sawing them into neat halves and amassing an impressive amount of grist. Every conversation is a struggle, and on the day your resolve breaks and you kiss him hard and bite his lower lip until it bleeds, he only kisses back because he’s touch-starved and craves any sort of attention, and you _hate_ the little slut.

Then he has the nerve to pretend it never happened and go back to acting like he wants you pale.

You push back your rage and your poisonous pitch and bury it under a cool façade until he blows up your matriorb and your hate turns platonic. When he kills you, you wonder if he was ever anything but disgusting. As you slice him in two and leave him gasping and dying on the ground, you think there’s no one who deserved to die more.


	14. Comeback; Eridan&Sollux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Espirit d'escalier (French)- when you think of the perfect verbal comeback... much too late

“ _Fucking hell_ ,” you groan suddenly, mashing the ‘pause’ button and falling back into the couch, tossing your controller to the ground. Digging the heels of your hands into your eye sockets, you mentally berate yourself for being too idiotic to think of this comeback earlier. As per usual, you were verbally sparring with your best friend’s lisping disaster of a boyfriend and he made a dumb comment, so you responded with something weak and cringe-worthy that was not _nearly_ as wonderful as the quality line that popped into your head just now. Your wit excites you to no end.

“What the hell, Eridan?” Karkat questions from the armchair to the right of you, gripping his controller tighter. “You can’t just pause every time I’m about to kick your ass in Mortal Kombat, it doesn’t save you from humiliation.”

“Kar,” you say, still basking in your too-late stroke of genius and yielding to the urge to tell _someone_ , “you’ll appreciate what I just thought of, I know it. But I need to give you some background.”

With a sigh, he drops his controller next to him and reaches toward the coffee table to pick up his soda. “Fine, just hurry up, I want to finish this.”

“So,” you begin, “I was talking to Sol when you and Fef were in the kitchen earlier, and he spotted my Super Nintendo and started talking shit about it, saying stuff like ‘the graphicth will never compare to the newer thtuff’ and ‘the thtorytelling ith vile’ and ‘the thythtem is utterly unreliable’—” you think you did a pretty good imitation right there, “—and all I could think of was ‘shut up, it’s fun’. It wasn’t my best moment.”

Karkat looks at you like you’re the biggest dingus on the entire planet. “You’re still thinking about a dumb squabble? Eridan, you are _so_ —”

“I’m not done,” you interrupt, and you grin as you consider giving Sol a call just so you can tell him what you thought of. You bet he’d shit himself in despair.

It’s even _better_ once you realize that he would probably be upset with Fef. She tells you _everything_ —she has ever since you were little kids—so you know the details of her sickening sex life, and you bet he’d be mad that she’s share such intimate things with you. Before, all the knowledge ever did was make you ill and give you nightmares, but _fuck_ it would’ve been _so nice_ to have remembered that Sollux Captor suffers from a touch of erectile dysfunction.

Preening, you sit up straight and smirk as you reveal, “I should’ve said, ‘At least my Nintendo cartridges react when they get blown’.”

Kar blinks at you, then his eyes go wide and you know he must’ve known about Sol’s inability to get it up, which is _great_ for you. A startled, awkward chuckle bursts from his mouth for less than a second before he cuts it off, scowling. “You’re such a moron,” he says, picking up his controller and turning back to the television, “oh my God. Press ‘play’.”


	15. Not Too Late; Eridan/Feferi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Il n'est jamais trop tard pour bien faire. (French) - It is never too late to do well.

You’re two sweeps old, and you don’t think it’s too late.

Eridan’s eyes are bloodshot from crying when he brings his first kill to you—a dead seagull lusus, small and possessing only one wing. The other one was undoubtedly blown off, and the wound reveals jagged bone and deep purple insides that make you feel a bit ill. But you’re used to this already, you’ve killed lusii and fed Gl’bgolyb properly. Your moirail is new to hunting, and even though he talks about plundering the seas and crushing land dwellers under his boot, you know he’s soft-bloodpushered beneath all the pomp and arrogance.

“The girl didn’t even try to fight me,” he says, looking at his feet in shame. You take the bird from his hands and set it on the deck of his ship, behind some barrels so it’s just out of his sight. “I shot her lusus and she could only look at me in horror before she started bawling.”

He’s a product of his society and what little schoolfeeding he’s had so far. He thinks everyone is below him but you, and sometimes you catch him looking at you like you’re already the Empress, so far up on a pedestal that he doesn’t know how to properly reach you. Eridan told you before he left that he’d be able to take up your hunting duties without a problem, because he’s a coldblooded killer and nothing can harm him, but as you take him into your arms and smell the bit of puke on his breath, you don’t think he’s weak for feeling wretched and remorseful.

You think he’s wonderful, and you’re relieved.

~

You’re four sweeps old, and you don’t think it’s too late.

He has doomsday plans and a blackcrush and ambition that rivals yours in its intensity. Killing lusii means nothing to him now, and he tries to convince you of sea dweller supremacy in almost every conversation. There’s bite and fire in his words, but you know by the way he touches you and soothes your hurts and makes you feel loved that he’s capable of being better than he is. He treats his land dweller FLARP rival like an equal, and you hope she’ll introduce him to more of them and he’ll learn they’re no different from the supposed master race.

Sometimes you worry when he rants about killing them all, because he hunts for you with such coldblooded efficiency and determination that a few times, you thought he might turn his gun on you in his killing high. But later, he purrs as you stroke his fins and hug him until he folds around you and tries to envelop you completely, and you know he’s capable of empathy and sensitivity.

Eridan is smart and good with a gun and loves harder than anyone else you’ve ever met. He would do well if he stopped trying to poison himself with hate.

~

You’re five sweeps old, and you don’t think it’s too late.

Karkat and Kanaya are good friends to him. He has exempted them from his genocide plans and you hope they’ll help him realize that he _doesn’t_ have to kill all the land dwellers. As he laughs at something Karkat said on Trollian or shows you a dress Kanaya designed, you mentally thank them, because even if they don’t know it, they are _teaching_ him. Prejudice has left scars deep in his mind, choking him from the inside out, and you know he doesn’t truly believe half the crap he spews.

He _wants_ to, though—that’s the hard thing. Eridan wants to be petty and superior and royal, even if it isolates him and makes him dreadfully lonely. It irks you to no end that he won’t allow himself to do well, because he thinks loving the peasantry makes him just as lowly and weak. He acts like a wiggler and refuses to listen to you when you tell him the hemospectrum is twisted bullshit.

(Once, when he was sick with a high fever and completely miserable, you stroked his hair while whispering platitudes, and he told you something you doubt he remembers: “I _have_ to be above them, Fef. If you take away the privilege that comes with my fins and my blood color, there’ll be nothing good about me.”)

One day, he’ll realize how wrong he is, in all regards. Now, you look at the foul troll he has become and know deep down that he has the ability to be so much _better_.

And you’ll never stop believing in him.


	16. The Empress; Feferi/Kanaya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: soigne (French) - possessing an aura of sophistication in dress, manner or design; presented or prepared with an elegance attained through care for the finer details

You painstakingly designed her dress over perigees. Feferi made her first impression during the duel, where she managed to skewer her ancestor only because she cheated—though Alternia and the Fleet didn’t know that, and her cheating doesn’t matter since Her Imperious Condescension was too—and what an impression it was. The Empire as a whole was stunned and horrified; how did a _wiggler_ defeat the most indomitable Empress of all time? Feferi walked out of the duel and promptly collapsed from exhaustion and pain, but all of you were ready for her, relieved that she hadn’t failed.

And now it’s time for her to make her first address to the Empire as its new ruler.

With her dress thrown over your arm, you carefully knock on her door. Eridan opens it, looking bewildered and handsome in a smart suit that lacks his usual stripes and cape. He wears an outfit reminiscent of an Imperial officer, with fuchsia-accented cufflinks shaped into diamonds and a gun slung over his shoulder. He’ll be acting as Feferi’s personal guard tonight, even though Karkat handpicked about a dozen other officers to handle her security.

Eridan offers you a dazzling smile that you’re entirely certain he’s been practicing in the mirror. “Kan, you look lovely,” he says.

“Thank you,” you tell him, “and congratulations for getting rid of the cape.”

“I just haven’t put it on yet,” he says, shrugging. “The one I had made for this is a lot heavier than my old one, it puts strain on my shoulders.” His eyes dart down to the bundle in your arms. “Is that..?”

“What else would it be?” you question dryly. “Now, run along. Karkat would like to speak to you.”

After he gives you a crisp salute, you maneuver around each other, and you shut the door behind you. Feferi is deep in her new chambers, sitting in front of a vanity and brushing her long, wet hair.

She is bubbly and childish and has retained her round cheeks, even after her adult molt. She is shorter than the Condesce, and she doesn’t carry herself like royalty. Eridan tried to give her an arrogance lesson, but it ended badly. Even to you, she looks like a little girl.

As she gives her coronation speech, though, she will look like the Empress. You’ve made sure of it.

“Are you ready?” you ask, and she knows as she makes eye contact with your reflection in the mirror that your question isn’t about trying on the dress.

Grinning, she twists in her seat. “My speech is memorized, and I watched some cute purrbeast videos to get all the giggles out of my system. I think I’ll be able to make it through this speech without any threats of treason.”

Your smile is tight. “I think it’s time for you to put this on, then.”

She claps excitedly, clasping her hands together under her chin as she gets up and rushes towards you. You help her put the dress on, making sure she doesn’t step on any of the delicate fabric and cause it to tear. Once she wiggles into it, you take the wrap you laid on the bench and tie it around her waist, completing the look. “What do you think?” you question a bit nervously.

Turning back towards her mirror, she spins and admires the dress from all angles. It was hard to incorporate every color of the hemospectrum—plus Karkat’s—into the design without them clashing, but you think you did a good job of it. The dress is elegant without being pretentious, falling across her body in such a way that it screams _sophistication_ and helps make up for her young face. Even without haughtiness in the set of her shoulders, she pulls off _confidence_ , and that’s even better than being egotistical. The twin curves of her sign runs from her shoulders to her hips and are connected by the thin wrap around her waist, and her skirt clings to her legs before billowing out like a fish’s tail.

“Kanaya,” she breathes, running the fabric through her fingers, “it’s _perfect_.”

A tension you didn’t know was there leaks from your shoulders. The amount of work you put into this dress might actually pay off.

“I’m glad you like it,” you say, ushering her back into her seat. “I’ll do your hair and makeup, as well. Just sit still.”

Feferi Peixes makes it through her speech without any interruptions or threats of rebellion and manages to comfort the fears of highbloods and assure lowbloods of her support. She is positively _regal_ , and she does not look like a child of ten sweeps that barely won the throne.

She looks like the Empress.


	17. Thoughts; Dolorosa&Signless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: S'entendre (French)- literally meaning “hearing (each other)”, to get along with someone in the sense that you understand how they think

Since he was very small, you knew how to tell the way Kankri was going to react to something by his body language. Squared shoulders meant he was going to say something impudent; hunching over meant he was about to apologize; a slight upward twitch of his eyebrows meant he was going to express his incredulity; a subtle twist to his lips meant he was going to act out against injustice. When he was very young, you were able to pick him up and carry him away—sometimes kicking and screaming—before he could cause any trouble, but when he got older and wiser and even more kindhearted, he started reading you in the same way.

He knows when you think it’s time to leave an area. He understands the way you stare at the trees and the hills and the sky, waiting for threats and obstacles. He grasps your arm to keep you from shedding blood or making an improper confrontation. With a single look, the two of you can share thoughts and have lengthy conversations, because you understand one another on such a profound level that comes from taking care of him since he took his first breath.

Even after he finds the troll he wants to share every quadrant with, his bond with you doesn’t weaken. You are his mother: his support, his protector, his home. He shares all he can with you, and as he preaches and travels and brings people to his cause, you are his closest confidant and the one he trusts more than anyone.

He makes his final sermon, the smell of his burnt flesh making you nauseous and the sound of his voice causing tears to leak down your face, and he does not look at you. Even though you do not see his eyes, you know that through his anger and his despair, he is _afraid_ , and you want nothing more than to take his place, locked up in searing irons. When he is done with his speech, chest heaving and words ringing throughout the plaza, he finally looks at you.

He spewed hate and screamed his revulsion of the troll species. He denounced you all and hung his head in shame, disgusted to be a part of a culture that only knew how to cull. But when his eyes meet yours, his expression blatantly reveals his final thought: _If only all trolls could be like you, Mother._

As Kankri dies, all other trolls present in the plaza will remember the hate that rolled off him in waves. When the guards grab your wrists too gently to cause the pain you wish would come, all you can do is remember his love.


	18. Not Today; Mindfang/Redglare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Valar morghulis (High Valyrian)- all men must die

You underestimated the Legislacerator wench.

She takes your eye and your arm and locks you away in a cell in order to have a trial. You want to know what happened to your ship—if it’s damaged beyond repair, you will gut every troll in the vicinity. Shifting in your chains, you sit against the damp stone wall, trying to ignore the pain from your hastily bandaged injuries. Everyone who comes into your prison is careful, because they know how cunning you are and they don’t want to risk freeing you, but you will not make any moves yet. You’ll lure them into a false sense of security before you play all your cards.

Unlike the faceless guards that bring you food and water, Redglare comes into the cell like she owns it. Her pointed nose and sharp cheekbones and unnerving smile don’t affect you in the way she hopes they will; her features are more of an annoyance than anything else.

“So when’s the bloody trial?” you question, rolling your remaining eye like you couldn’t care less about the answer.

“Oh my dear brigand, the trial is already over,” she cackles, resting both hands primly on the head of her dragon cane. “You’ve been sentenced to hang tomorrow.”

You don’t let your surprise show. Instead, you snort like you hear that sort of declaration once a perigee and tilt your head back so it hits the wall. “Lass, you’re insane to think that I’d let a _rope_ kill me.”

Leaning down to grin right in your face, she tells you, “Every troll dies eventually.” Her breath smells acidic, like she sunk a poisoned blade right into your nose. Shrugging nonchalantly, she adds, “You’re just dying a bit sooner than you expected.”

“And what are _you_ going to do, once I’m dead?” you snarl, hoping your sudden shift in demeanor will scare her. Your two long fangs to give you a rather threatening sneer.

She pulls back, but the movement is perfectly calculated. The set of her shoulders doesn’t reveal an ounce of fear. “I will continue to serve the Empire. And now that I’ve given you your big news, I shall take my leave.” Her grin contains no warmth whatsoever. “Enjoy your hanging, Spinneret.”

You underestimated the Legislacerator wench. You will not do it again.

On the day of your execution, it is her who hangs. A small, tattered part of your bloodpusher aches for a black relationship lost—Dualscar was never able to keep up with your wit, no matter how hard he tried, so it was _refreshing_ to have a challenge—but it doesn’t matter. All trolls must die, but it is not yet your time. As you walk off the platform, your powers still blanketing the spectators that were calling for your blood mere minutes ago, you think, _not today._


	19. Bittersweet; Eridan/Feferi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Razbliuto (Russian)- The sentimental feeling you have about someone you once loved but no longer do

In the dreambubbles, you see a lot of Eridans, but none of them are yours. There are a lot under Vriska’s control, and some of them killed you and others were your moirail or your matesprit or your kismesis. Some viewed you with disgust, while others got so happy that you knew at first glance they weren’t from your timeline, because your Eridan never smiled that big. You don’t look for him, but you keep an eye out, knowing the time will eventually come for you to reunite.

When you finally do see him, it’s in his bubble, and he’s grasping the railing of one of his FLARPing ships and staring at the sea. A strange sixth sense tells you he’s from your timeline, and you take in his silhouette, standing there silently as you try to make sense of your feelings.

You expected rage or sadness or pity. You were ready to be hit with all of the pale feelings you once had for him, or become swallowed by hatred so fierce that you’d have to kill him again to satiate it. But as he turns and drops to his knees and bows his head, shoulders trembling with suppressed sobs as he chokes out an apology, the realization passes through your mind calmly.

You do not love him anymore.

A small upturn of your lips surprises you. Something sentimental and bittersweet licks at your chest, but it’s a tiny dose of emotion, hardly enough for you to feel it. You think about the nights you spent on the beach looking for shells and the days wasted curled up in your recuperacoon and the storms you rode out in his wand pile, telling scary stories that always bothered him more than they bothered you. Though it’s been countless sweeps, you remember what it was like to be happy with him, but you don’t yearn for those days. You appreciate loving him when he was willing to give as well as take, and you’re only the tiniest bit bitter about your failed moirallegiance now.

Stepping closer to him, you lay a hand on his hair. He flinches at your touch, but you don’t pull back. “Eridan, I don’t forgive you, but I’m not angry. I stopped being angry a long time ago, I think. The only thing I’m prepared to do now is to give us some closure, so here you go: Eridan, you can’t take back what you did. I loved what we had before it got so warped and disgusting, but we’ll never have another relationship, so you’ll just have to hold onto those memories, like I’ve been doing. Maybe we’ll see each other again, but I honestly think it’ll be better for both of us if we go our separate ways.” For old time’s sake, you brush your thumb over the base of his horn. “Goodbye, Eridan.”

You’re glad you’ve turned around by the time he starts to cry.


	20. False Hope; Aradia/Eridan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Paasa (Tagalog)- A person who leads someone on (intentionally or not). Appearing as if they are genuinely interested romantically when they aren’t.

  
It builds slowly. That’s how you love—it creeps up on you and when you least expect it, BAM, you’re suddenly being catapulted over the wall and landing hard in the throes of fuck-me-I-totally-want-to-bang-one-of-my-best-friends- _again_. There was a time when you thought you’d be hung up on Fef forever, but you guess you just had to meet more people, and when you figure out that you have truly moved on and have another crush, it’s a _relief_. This time will be different from the last, because now you’re pretty confident that Aradia Megido does indeed reciprocate your feelings.

She _likes_ you, you think, and it’s so nice to have something requited instead of another one-sided relationship. Ara will use any excuse to touch you, elbowing you in the side when you say something dumb and grabbing your shoulder when she wants to get your attention or poking your cheek just because and resting her head on your shoulder when you sit next to each other. She talks to you until the wee hours of the morning and confides in you, telling you things she said she never even told Sollux, and you open your doors a little bit wider and let her see you for how you actually are, and she _still_ wants to be around you. She’s strange and spontaneous and one of the most wonderful people you’ve ever met. You have a lot in common, particularly a love of history, and she drags you to artifact galleries and caves and anywhere in the area that has historical significance. Hanging out with her is _so much fun_ , and you believe you and Ara are fated in the stars.

One night when you’re dropping her off at her house after going down to an old fort for a reenactment, you decide it’s about time to make things official. You take a deep breath as she says, “Thanks for driving, Eridan, it’s so cool when Fort McKinley does these things—”

“Can you wait a sec?” you ask, kneading the steering wheel a tad nervously. “I have something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Okay!” she says, taking her hand off the door handle and turning to grin at you. She looks so alive in this moment that you don’t know how you ever thought there might be something wrong with her because of how she’d space out in class, looking at the wall with a slack expression. When you first started talking to her, you found out pretty fast that she was sort of shy at first, but it was easy to bring her out of her shell.

Clearing your throat, you begin. “So, I’ve been thinking about… um, stuff.” _God_ , you’re an idiot. “I really like hanging out with you.”

You’re not done, but she still chimes in, “I really like hanging out with you, too! You’re a lot less of a stick in the mud than I thought you’d be, Eridan!”

The backhanded compliment startles a small smile out of you. “Thanks, I guess. So I was wondering if you might want to get dinner and a movie, perhaps Friday night?”

“What movie?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. “I know the new _How To Train Your Dragon_ sequel just came out—”

“Let me just make this clear, real quick, to make sure there’s no misunderstanding,” you say, holding up a hand. You can feel butterflies fluttering around in your stomach, because holy _shit_ that was so close to a “yes”, you can feel giddiness building in your heart. “I’m asking you on a date.”

Then her expression freezes, all happiness and inquisitiveness dropping, and your stomach plummets.

“Oh, Eridan,” she sighs, lips curving downward with pity and her gorgeous brown eyes turning sad, “I didn’t think you liked me like that.” You can tell she’s thinking about what happened between you and Fef when she reaches out, but you just flinch away and she retracts her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she says earnestly. You know she’s being sincere, but it doesn’t help the ball of lead forming in your gut. “I… I didn’t think you were taking it like that. You’ve been such a good friend to me,” and _that_ line hurts like a bitch, because you’ve heard it before, “and I don’t think I could _do_ that sort of relationship with you.” Pursing her lips together, she breaks eye contact with you and exhales through her nose. “I really am sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Oh god, your voice broke and you’re so _embarrassed_. “I’ll just… head home now. I had fun tonight, Ara.”

“I did, too,” she says, trying to bring back her smile, but it’s strained. Her expression is kind but she’s thrown up a wall between you two, you can tell. As she gets out of your car and walks to her front door, you resist the urge to bash your head on the steering wheel for being such a fucking idiot _again_. Why the fuck did you think it would be any different this time? Of _course_ she didn’t return your feelings, you’re too much of a piece of festering shit to be loved by someone wonderful.

Swallowing to get rid of the lump in your throat, you pull out of her driveway and decide that tonight is a Cold Stone Creamery and _Pirates of the Caribbean_ night.


End file.
